Blue Light Yokohama
by Ravatta
Summary: Falling in love is easy. You just have to learn how to forget, and pretend what you forgot never existed in the first place. (Sakura/Aoi - Sakura/Kenichiro)


It's strange how memories work.

One can be registered in the time it would take to snap a finger, forgotten just as quickly, and you'd never know it was there to begin with- a scent, a sound, a whole day or a year, lost forever. But some things stay. Some things, your brain doesn't forget - it just pretends to.  
And they stay hidden, as if in wait, until you let your guard down and they come back to claw and tear at everything they can get to, corroding everything they touch.

Spring was coming to an end, and without a breath of wind, the air outside felt stale and sticky, and hardly anyone ventured in the sun if it wasn't strictly necessary. Outside, the lush trees in the courtyard of Hope's Peak Academy looked as if they were about to melt in the blinding early afternoon light.  
Somewhere in the school's dorm, a radio was playing, and the music flowed in through a cracked bedroom door. On the fake wood panels that covered it was a pixel image of Aoi Asahina- but it was Sakura Oogami, laying on her back over the swimmer's bed, who froze when the first notes of the song reached her ears.

_Machi no akari ga totemo kirei ne  
Yokohama, Blue Light Yokohama  
_

The small noises that filled the room, Aoi's muffled gasps mixed with her own labored breathing, the wrinkled blanket pressed uncomfortably against her back, the cicadas outside and the heat were suddenly choking, every small detail bursting and bringing back memories she thought long buried, and the soft warmth of the swimmer pressed over her body no longer felt as reassuring, or sweet, or gentle as it did before. Now, it was just _weight_.  
The girl, however, didn't notice her partner's turmoil at first- her mouth and hands busy on Sakura's breasts and hips, half holding her in place and half caressing her skin. It was only when she failed to elicit any reaction from her that she looked up, with a puzzled expression.  
"Sakura-chan?"  
The wrestler kept her eyes tightly shut, head turned to the side, replying only when the silence began to get heavy.  
"we should lock the door." she muttered. "our fellow classmates could hear..." Aoi hugged her torso and smiled, but it was a confused smile, one that was no longer certain everything was going well. Outside, the song was continuing, but to her ears, it was just... music.  
"Sakura-chan, are you all right? What's going on?"  
"Asahina. Would you mind closing the door?" her voice was soft, as if she'd just woken up from a dream, in silence, Aoi nodded and slid off the bed to comply, and while she did, the wrestler pulled her bra and uniform shirt back over her exposed breasts, any trace of arousal having left in the moment that damned song had started.

It wasn't something that happened often.  
Sakura liked to think it had never happened before at all. But then again- memories are fleeting.

A memory surfaced of a night two years back, to a night spent watching fireworks through a canopy of branches, just outside a village's summer festival- or what they liked to call a festival, small and only attended by the town's inhabitants.  
They laid on their backs over the moist grass, knowing their clothes would be drenched by the time they'd get up, and and they didn't care one bit.  
Sakura had brought a small battery radio with her, together with whatever edible she'd been able to carry in her arms from the few stands, happy to escape her father's strict control for one night.  
The food was all but finished and the conversation had died when the radio announced a classic for that night- and the notes poured out, nearly drowned by the whistle of fireworks and the thunder when they exploded in colorful lights.  
Blue Light Yokohama, by Ayumi Ishida.  
Mere months ago, she would have felt sad, missing the festival- but the slow, regular beating of _his_ heart and the muffled song were better than any conversation lost in the small crowd, and his arm over her shoulders was all she needed to be happy. The only thing she regretted was getting the yukata dirty, but even that didn't matter.  
The boy in the ragged kimono turned to look at her and smiled, with that shy way he had to smile- his eyes darting from Sakura's own and to her lips, and then back up, and the tip of his tongue sliding over his lower lip before he pulled her in for a kiss. An inexperienced, awkward kiss between two kids who barely knew anything other than the world of fighting, but a good kiss. Perfect, in a way.

Although she never thought of herself as a romantic woman, Blue Light Yokohama was "their song" to Sakura- it played on the radio during their first kiss. He was humming it, days later, as he ever so gently ran his fingers over her naked body.  
It played in her mind when she walked up to the mound of hospital blankets that this strong, beautiful man had become, and when he turned his face to look at her, gaunt and pale, the song's romantic lyrics felt like a slap to the face.

And now, they played in her mind, a painful reminder. Aoi's eyes, big and blue and full of worry, like those of a child, reflected her for what she was- a woman unworthy of love.

A woman that let her first love alone in the hospital, too terrified of his declining condition to ever visit again after that, forcing herself to believe he was fine.  
When the constant reminder that he was there, that he was dying, had been dulled with the passage of time... she had met Aoi Ashahina. Cheerful and friendly and gorgeous, everything that Sakura wasn't. They complimented each other so well, the quiet fighter and the small, easily distracted outgoing swimmer. Although there had been music when a pink-faced, slightly tipsy Aoi had pulled her close for a small tentative kiss, balancing on her toes to gain a few inches, it wasn't Blue Light Yokohama, and for a few months, everything had been just perfect.  
All she'd had to do was forget that Kenichiro had ever existed.  
Forget that he'd probably died alone, a man with no family or friends.

The room's air felt stale and immobile, and the bright spring lighting from the windows made everything look ironically cheerful.  
In the quiet, every noise was amplified, and Sakura's own heartbeat felt loud - so loud - it drowned out the world when she reached out to Aoi, wrapping her arms around her chest and pulling her down in the bed. The clumsy maneuver caused both of them to roll over, nearly falling off the mattress, and Aoi gasped in surprise when she felt the fighter's face buried against her chest, her strong arms locked on her back.  
It made her smile, though, and she returned the hug.  
"I didn't... I didn't do anything wrong, right?" she asked, tentatively.  
"You did not." was the muffled response. And then, so quiet it was almost inaudible "...Blue light Yokohama…"  
As the day's light turned crimson and slowly faded, the sounds outside the room forgotten, they both let each other be lulled to sleep by the warmth and safety of their mutual presence- and Aoi did her best to forget the tears staining her shirt, and her girlfriend's soft sobs as she held her close.

NOTES

written for a prompt in the Dangan Ronpa kink meme, the prompt being something along the lines of "how would the fact that Sakura's ex boyfriend is in the hospital influence a relationship between her and Aoi".

A million thousand thanks to LittlePorcelainDoll for being the best beta in the known universe.


End file.
